Write a story to illustrate the saying: Strike while the iron is hot.

Answer Details

Story to illustrate the saying: "Strike while the iron is hot"

A good story of this kind must be built around a clear plot that ends by proving the proverb, which means one should seize an opportunity at the right moment before it slips away. It should have a beginning, a rising action, a climax and a resolution, and the moral should emerge naturally. A model narrative follows.

THE INTERVIEW

Uche had waited two long years for a chance like this. Since leaving the university with a good degree, he had knocked on countless doors, and every one of them had shut in his face. So when the letter from Zenith Manufacturing arrived, inviting him to an interview the following Monday, his heart leapt with a joy he had not felt in a long time.

On the morning of the interview he arrived an hour early, dressed in his only clean shirt, his certificates neatly tucked in a brown envelope. He was the third candidate to be called in. The panel, four stern-faced men and one woman, asked him question after question, and to his own surprise he answered each one calmly and well.

Then the woman leaned forward and said, "Young man, we are impressed. But we need someone who can start at once. Our production line is idle, and every idle day costs us a fortune. Can you resume tomorrow morning?"

For a moment Uche hesitated. Tomorrow was his cousin's wedding, and he had promised to be the master of ceremonies. A voice inside him whispered that he could ask them to wait a week. But another voice, the wiser one, reminded him of the two barren years, the empty pockets, the shame of depending on his ageing mother. He remembered his late father's favourite words: "My son, when opportunity knocks, open the door at once, for it seldom knocks twice. Strike while the iron is hot."

Uche squared his shoulders and answered without a tremor, "Yes, madam, I will resume tomorrow." The panel exchanged approving glances. The woman smiled and handed him a letter of appointment there and then.

He learned later that the candidate after him, a brilliant fellow named Bassey, had asked for two weeks to "settle some matters" and had been turned down on the spot. The company simply could not wait.

Uche rose quickly in Zenith Manufacturing and, within three years, was made a supervisor. Whenever young graduates came to him for advice, he would smile, remember that fateful Monday, and repeat the words that had changed his life: "Never let a golden chance grow cold in your hands. Strike while the iron is hot."

Examiner's note: the story must be a genuine narrative with characters and a plot, not a lecture, and its events must clearly demonstrate the proverb by the end. First-person or third-person narration is acceptable.